


Noted

by Jo (jmathieson)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ceiling Vents, Coulson Lives, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Nick Fury Lies, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 08:56:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12908580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmathieson/pseuds/Jo
Summary: While he's recovering from being stabbed in the back by Loki, Phil has a lot of time to think.





	Noted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [msraven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msraven/gifts).



Phil had had a lot of time to think while he was recuperating. About his life and how he'd lived it so far. About things he regretted doing, and not doing. And about what he was planning to do differently now that… Well, let's just say that he'd had an awful lot of time to think, and he'd made some decisions. Quite a few, in fact.

One of the things he'd decided to do was sneak behind Nick's back (not for the first time), disobey a direct order (also not for the first time), and reveal highly classified information (for the first time). But since the highly classified information was the fact of his own continued existence on the mortal plane, Phil figured he had a say in the matter. 

Another one of the things he'd decided was who he wanted to divulge the (highly classified) information to. Jasper would be pissed when he eventually found out, almost as pissed as Maria Hill. But they'd both accept Fury's decision and reasoning.

Clint though, Clint would be hurt, and Phil couldn't bear to think of that, especially now that… No, Phil put those thoughts aside for later. Right now he needed to figure out how to get a note to Clint (not difficult) and figure out what he wanted the note to say (difficult, but not impossible). He had plenty of time to think about it.

It turned out that actually writing the note was the hardest part. No one carried notebooks or pens anymore, especially not nurses and doctors. Everything was on data-pads, which they never let out of their sight. And were useless to Phil anyway because while he was a competent hacker, he didn't have the skills to hide every trace of a message. Especially not in the few seconds he'd have to do it. So instead he fell back on traditional spy-craft, and a little social engineering.

"Anything you need?" Nick asked at the end of his visit, like he always did.

"Actually, yes. Something to do. Crossword puzzles, or Sudoku, or something. I'm starting to go a little stir crazy for the few hours a day that I'm actually awake," Phil said, letting just enough 'I've got something up my sleeve' leak through to make Nick appropriately suspicious.

Nick Fury smiled a smile that didn't make it to his one gleaming eye. "Sure thing, Cheese," he said. 

And sure enough, next visit, Nick dropped a stack of crossword and Sudoku and logic puzzles and word-jumble magazines on his hospital tray. Along with a single golf-sized pencil. Phil smiled his thanks and pretended he wasn't offended, and Nick smiled back and pretended Phil wasn't a prisoner. 

Phil spent the next two days doing Sudoku and crossword puzzles, and absolutely did not tear a page out of any of the magazines to write his note. That would have been far too obvious. Instead, during a dressing change, he secreted one of the paper wrappers from the sterile gauze pads that the nurses used a half-dozen of, and slipped it into his Sudoku book. 

"Clint," he wrote in his careful, rounded block letters. Clint would recognize his handwriting, having seen it on a multitude of briefing notes, forms and after-action reports over the years. "This is going to be a shock, a good one I hope: I'm alive. Fury used some experimental tech to revive me and the docs patched me up. Fury's keeping it a secret for his own reasons, but I wanted you to know. Tell Natasha, but no one else. Don't stage a 'rescue'. I'm still weak as a kitten and need to stay and do what the docs say for a while yet. But I'm okay. And it's not your fault — any of it. Your friend, Phil."

~~~~~~

Three weeks later he was shuffling down the hall to the physiotherapy room (they'd started letting him walk rather than insisting on the wheelchair after he kept running over the orderlies' toes, and had bashed Fury in the shins with the wheelchair's footrests twice) when Clint Barton a.k.a Hawkeye dropped out of a ceiling vent in front of him.

"Hey, Boss. Fancy meeting you here," Clint said with an obviously forced smile covering his nerves.

"Good to see you, Clint," Phil said. "It's been a while since I've seen a friendly face." Phil shot a pointed glance at Nick. 

"Who else knows?" Fury asked, his face a stony mask.

"Natasha," Clint and Phil said simultaneously, and then grinned at each other. Clint even made an abortive 'high-five' move, but he realized that Phil was starting to sway a little on his feet.

"Clint's going to come and keep me company during physio today, okay Nick?" Phil asked brightly. He knew full well that Fury had two choices: acquiesce, to continue the fiction that Phil wasn't a prisoner, or throw Clint in a holding cell, and lose what was left of Phil's goodwill. 

"Sure, go ahead," Fury said, and turned and stalked away down the hall. 

So three months later when Phil was deemed fit to return to the field, he got an easy (cakewalk even) mission with Hawkeye. 

"Where's Widow?" Phil had asked Fury when he'd reviewed the assignment. 

"In Croatia. Investigating a trafficking ring. You wanna wait until she gets back, or do you want to do this?" Fury stared at Phil with his one eye, challenging, assessing, and… something else. Something Phil hadn't seen before. Phil looked at the mission parameters again. It was easy. He and Clint could do this, no problem. 

"When do we leave?" Phil asked, setting his face into an unreadable mask. He'd learned that one playing poker with Nick while they were still serving together.

"Day after tomorrow, oh-eight-hundred."

"I'd better brief my asset, then," Phil said, suppressing his smile, and turned to leave. "I assume my office is still in the same place?"

"Get out of my sight. Go do your job."

"Yessir," Phil said, allowing the grin to spread across his face and also come out in his voice.

~~~~~~

Phil was in a grungy studio apartment stuffed with comms equipment in Indianapolis, and Clint was three blocks away on a rooftop with eyes on their target, and all was right with the world. 

"Target down, Boss." Clint's voice came over the comms.

"Confirmed," Phil said, looking through his scope. "Mop-up team, go in. Hawkeye, return to base."

"On my way, Boss. See you in three."

Sure enough, two minutes and fifty seconds later Clint climbed through the apartment window via the fire escape.

"Nice work," Phil said, crossing to the window and resisting the urge to reach out to Clint.

"Thanks, Boss," Clint said with a wide smile. And the smile persisted as Clint carefully cleaned and packed his bow away in it's case and then stripped off his tactical gear, down to combat pants and a tight black undershirt.

Phil, who had tried very hard to distract himself with forms and reports on his laptop, finally couldn't any longer. "You seem… happy?" Phil knew the words didn't make much sense, but he hoped he had provided enough of an opening for Clint to fill in the gaps.

Clint stowed his bow case in the corner of the room and then turned to where Phil was sitting at the tiny kitchen table with his laptop.

"I guess I'm just glad to be working again. With you. As my handler, I mean. I, uh, missed you when you were… recovering."

Phil put his laptop to sleep and stood up.

'I missed you too,' seemed like too much, too soon, so instead Phil said, "I'm glad to be working again too. With you." Phil realized his mouth was not following his brain's instructions and snapped it shut.

Clint took a single step closer to where Phil was standing. "Thanks, um, you know, for after. The note. Uh... after Loki ki‑" Clint swallowed. "Just thanks. For letting me know you weren't really dead. Meant a lot. To know we were friends."

Phil swallowed. "I'm glad. Once I realized what Nick was up to… He had his reasons, but I couldn't bear the thought of you believing that I was dead, and maybe thinking that you were somehow responsible." Phil's voice broke on the last word and he took a couple of deep breaths, trying to regain his composure.

"I wanted to hug you. That day, in the corridor, when I dropped out of the vents. You were real, alive, in front of me and it was like I hadn't really believed it up until then. Until I saw with my own eyes that you were real and alive and breathing in front of me and I wanted nothing more than to wrap my arms around you…" the flood of words from Clint's mouth trickled to a halt and his face twisted into a semblance of a grin. "But I figured Fury'd shoot me if I tried, so I didn't…" The last word was uncertain. As if Clint was doubting himself or…

"I would have liked that," Phil said softly, and took a step towards Clint, halving the distance between them. 

"Yeah, me too," Clint said, taking his own step forward and then, tentatively, raising his arms.

Phil had had enough of waiting. Enough of thinking. Enough of being tentative. He pulled Clint into a fierce hug and held him tight.

"I care about you a great deal," he whispered into Clint's hair.

"I… yeah… me too…"

Clint's voice sounded desperate and Phil didn't want that. Didn't want Clint to sound distressed. Everything was fine, now. Everything was going to be okay. Phil moved one hand to the back of Cl;int's head and threaded his fingers through the short hair there. 

"I missed you too," Phil said. "I missed you a lot." He kept his hand where it was, but leaned back, just enough to see Clint's face. "I had a lot of time to think, while I was, ah, recuperating. About things I wish I'd said, or done." Phil paused. Swallowed. Clint's blue-green eyes were staring into his, unwavering. "This is one of the things I wished I'd done," he said, and slowly, carefully, giving Clint plenty of time to back off or deflect, leaned in and kissed him. Gently. But with all the longing that Phil had kept bottled up for years.

Clint kissed him back. Tentatively, at first, but once it was clear that this wasn't just some kind of 'Hi, I'm glad you're alive' thing, Clint kissed him back with all the passion and urgency that Phil had been daring to hope for. 

"I care about you too. A lot. Really a lot," Clint said. "How soon do we have to report for extraction?" He had a hopeful look on his face.

Phil threw his head back and laughed, and then pulled Clint towards the sofa. "Extraction'll be when I say, and no sooner," he said, tumbling them both down in a heap. "Because I've waited long enough for this."


End file.
